Within the field of ignition systems, a high and reliable performance is generally required in order to supply ignition to a combustion engine in a cost and energy efficient manner.
A problem, however, lies in gathering information regarding the performance of the system, since any attempt at measuring properties such as the magnetic flux at the charge coil or trig coil of a conventional system will suffer from disturbances due to the spark generation, among other things. In the event that the charge coil is periodically short-circuited in order to enhance the charging of a charge capacitor, such as is shown by SE0600752-0, for instance, this process also generates a high level of disturbances in the magnetic flux in the ignition system. It is therefore difficult to gather enough information to successfully monitor and control the ignition system, and as a result sparks can be generated at an unsuitable position or direction, such as during high compression in the engine, for instance. Also, external systems involving sensors or the like that expect to detect a spark from the ignition system will suffer from these disturbances, resulting in a decreased performance or even damages to the systems. For ignition systems that use a double pole bridge flywheel, the problems can be especially serious, since the risk for generating a spark at the wrong time based on incorrect information is increased, compared to systems using a single pole bridge flywheel.
There is therefore clearly a need for an ignition control system that can monitor and control the performance of the ignition system and eliminate the risk of undesirable spark generation without interference from the normal ignition system functions.